Today news came out that Nike received an interim injunction against adidas for patent infringement by the “adizero primeknit” shoe released in July, 2012. After Nike had released their Flyknit running shoes earlier this year, it came as a surprise to many when adidas released the adiZero Primeknit sneaker shortly after. Both based on the idea of knitting the uppers of a sneaker, the technologies seemed very similar. Obviously one cannot really speak of copying a concept, because adidas has also been working on it for many years, but by releasing it a few months earlier and one could argue in a bigger way, Nike managed to claim the technology for itself and now underlined that with a patent infringement law suit in Germany.

Here is the official statement by Nike:

“We are pleased the District Court in Nuremberg has granted our application for an interim injunction against adidas for patent infringement by the “adizero primeknit” shoe released in July, 2012. As a result, adidas has been ordered to stop the manufacture and distribution of the shoe in Germany.

Nike has a strong heritage of innovation and leadership in footwear design and development. Our patents are the foundation of that leadership and we protect them vigorously. In this case, the injunction helps protect the innovative NikeFlyknit footwear technology Nike introduced in February, 2012.

We look forward to presenting our case for a permanent injunction to the court.”